Absence Makes the Heart
by toomuchconflict
Summary: In the two years after the destruction of the Normandy, they all survive - and, unknowingly, prepare.
1. The Insistent Past

_Death becomes you_

Her people were no strangers to loss. Sometimes there were bad days, with an illness sweeping from ship to ship like wildfire, closing doors and hearts both in its wake. Then there were the really bad days. Any small malfunction could shut down an entire ship in the blink of an eye, and none would know better until it was already too late.

Tali felt she should have known by now that it never really got any easier, but apparently even the pilgrimage could not completely take the child out of her.

She had thought she knew death. She had been wrong.

The _Neema_ was little like the _Rayya_ and even less like the _Normandy. _For the first few weeks since returning from her pilgrimage, Tali barely slept. The whir of air filters, a lullaby in her childhood, now kept her eyes from closing and her thoughts from calming.

During the small moments of sleep she could find, she dreamed. She saw silence, fire, and herself—alone in an empty escape pod.

For months, she wished she had never left at all. She had seen what the world looked like up close, had learned just how many things she could never truly touch or taste. Where before the suit had been her safety, now it was her cage.

Where before loss had been a part of life, it was now a nightmare.

She signed up for any away mission that would take her. Many did: there were few quarians who had fought as many geth as she had. In fact, she probably had more actual experience than most of the marines escorting her.

That fact reared its head time and time again. It was just an annoyance more often than not, though sometimes it was enough to make her throat clench; hearing bad orders barked at shaking recruits barely out of adolescence, and knowing that failing to move in time would mean something terrible.

Despite all of it, she persevered. She had learned vigilance, how to see a field from end to end with just one glance. She always made sure to offer her thoughts to the squad leaders ostensibly in charge of her safety. When some inevitably failed to care for the words of "barely an adult", there were still other things she had learned that she could put to use. She knew, now, how sometimes only a few words could turn the strangest of situations right on its head; how—when all else failed—just about anything could be solved by the subtle threat of a large enough an explosion. Well, except when you were dealing with krogan.

It took Tali a while to admit the true shape of her thoughts. She wasn't sure the giant explosions were quite what her old commander would have liked for her to learn, but there it was anyway. Shepard had taught her the importance of caution as well as strength. It was from watching Shepard that she knew how the right word could be worth a thousand bullets all at once.

In some rare and rather sentimental moments, she could see the outline of that familiar armored back, still guiding her steps.

* * *

_No man is an island_

Maybe he wasn't exactly the easiest man in the galaxy to get in touch with. Still, hearing about the death of your old commander from a sedated batarian on some glorified space-buggy? It was very nearly insulting.

He really needed to wire up some kind of news feed to Urdnot. Otherwise they'd wind up missing the damn Reaper invasion itself.

The public terminal he had dragged himself to out of curiosity had not been very helpful. No official story, no more than rumors confirming the batarian's version of events. Wrex had been a mercenary too long to be surprised either way. The most you ever heard from former cohorts was when they finally managed to get themselves killed. Even then you could never be sure which parts were true and which just convenient fiction. Especially if they owed you, but that was neither here or there.

Wrex was a mercenary no longer and had last been a proper krogan far too long ago. He couldn't remember the right words, or the right way to line up his thoughts.

Still, he had the age and the experience to know what was needed – and where to get it. One thing you could find on board any ship in the known galaxy was alcohol. Sometimes you had to shake a few people to get to it, but it always materialized itself for the thorough and the persistent enough.

Wrex had witnessed the human tradition once aboard the _Normandy._ He had thought it a waste at the time, some ultimately purposeless gesture performed out of convention. He only understood now, half a galaxy away and in the bowels of some ancient tin clunker, gripping a bottle that was never meant for one man alone.

Wrex looked out across the empty cargo bay and saw nothing in particular. He brought the bottle to his mouth and took one long drag. The rest he poured into the grating at his feet.

* * *

_The razor's edge_

"Alone" was an illusion. In a universe such as theirs, one could never truly be lost. She understood. All their experiences were transitory, a stopgap within a much greater state of existence.

What one might call death was, in reality, simply a certain state of change.

Benezia was among the many dead. Benezia had been her mother; her passing would always have come before hers. She still had the memories of her youth, of better years. She would always have them. Just because something was past, did not mean it was lost to you. It had been. It would always have been.

Grief, of course, had its place. Simply because a fate was inevitable did not mean it could not be a lamentable one. Benezia – the matriarch on Noveria had not been the same woman as her mother had once been. Who knew how long ago her mother had truly been lost? Perhaps decades since: with her ensconced within dusty ruins on an unsung planet, a distant loved one passed on to gentle memory in the wake of the fervor of discovery.

Death was, simply–

Shepard was–

The Protheans were dead. They had been long before she had been born, they would be long after she had lost her form. She should have always known this. It was not just the Protheans – every being to ever rise high enough to reach the stars had lost their lives to an ancient and deadly cycle. All gone long before her, all would remain gone even long after her. Their absence did not diminish them. Every small step in history, false and true, was a part of what had led to the here and now.

She had sought for so long and so hard. Though she knew the truth now, it could not take away meaning from her life's work. Just because the answers were not exactly what she had hoped to find, did not mean they were any lesser for it. Even if her perception had been somehow altered by the truth, it could not invalidate the years and years of study and discovery.

She had not–

Death –_ true_ death... it had to be an illusion. There was only change; things done differently from how they had gone before.

It was not much longer until they reached Omega. Liara closed her eyes, and let the hum of the engine grow to a roar in her skull.

* * *

_Fragile as a dream_

He never officially handed in his resignation. It almost felt like a favor: let C-Sec deal with, they were the ones so in love with paperwork anyway.

The Citadel didn't need him. It didn't even want him.

The dark of space was full of bad, bad things.

He cleared out his place, sold what he could, and left the Citadel with only the armor on his back. He wound up on Illium, though he only stayed there long enough to get his bearings. Omega was the obvious choice; his mind was made up scant seconds after the thought had surfaced.

For a long time, he did nothing but watch and build. No one ended up dead by his hands in nearly half a year. He really held back, roughed up only the few dumb enough to cross his path and not back down in time. Even Pallin would have been proud. Omega had no shortage of criminal bastards and by the law of the place—hell, he probably had every "right" to do a lot worse.

He never did. Every death he eventually delivered was clean and always deserved. It was the first and only rule he set for himself and, later, for those who chose to follow him. He wasn't Shepard—he couldn't even imagine making things right just by the nebulous power of understanding. He wasn't Pallin, or his father—he would never understand the point of a rule when it caused more harm than good. He couldn't really imagine ever becoming like Saren, either, not for as long as he knew he was fighting injustice. But one of the things his time aboard the _Normandy_ had taught him was, that at some point, maybe Saren had thought the same thing.

It wasn't an easy rule to work by, but at least he understood the need for this one.

* * *

_Fall from grace_

She had tried blaming herself in the beginning, but Ashley had been a soldier too long to really believe it. It would have been the easy way out, but not the right one. Shepard had died for duty; Ashley had lived for it. That was the reason given, and they all had to build it up to reason enough—even when it so very blatantly just _wasn't_.

Shepard had been a hero. Shepard had been her friend... and in some nameless and intangible capacity, so much more. Every great and good thing she would do from here on out would be in the Commander's honor, and in the name of every comrade lost.

"You have heard the rumors, I trust it."

Major Zimmer was pacing in front of an ugly gray desk. The major had never been a very subdued person, but there was something _wrong_ about the way he couldn't quite look her in the eye.

"I've heard a lot of rumors, sir," Ashley said, keeping her voice slow and level—she just knew she wasn't going to like whatever was coming next.

"The ones about Commander Shepard."

Ashley swallowed and spoke quickly. "You'll have to specify, sir. There's been a lot of those lately."

The second anniversary of the _Normandy'_s destruction had been only a month ago. It had been all very carefully downplayed since day one—nothing confirmed or denied, so of course every possible kind of insane theory had repeatedly circulated the extranet by now.

Major Zimmer stopped, a calculating glance thrown from the corner of his eye. "The rumors about Shepard working for Cerberus."

Ashley laughed. She had to. "Sorry, but there's just no way that's true."

A PDA from the edge of the desk was thrust toward her. "You would know. Either way, we can't ignore this. You're taking off in two days."

There was no real reason to distrust the information she had in her hands. But above and beyond all else, Ashley still trusted her Commander.

* * *

Note: Written for "Mass Effect Challenge Community" on livejournal, challenge #10: Drabble it! The word goal was around 500 for each drabble, but I'm very apparently a perpetual underachiever, fnerr fnerr.)


	2. The Imminent Future

_Death is the road to awe._

His personal quarters were sparse and practical: a desk of minimalistic design, walls bare save for an old painting of an earth forest. The wide, silk sheeted bed was his only indulgence in this space.

It was at the end of a rather long day of work—as he sat on the edge of that bed, deep in thought—that the first message came in. A holographic interface lit up over the desk with a loud and urgent ping. He was immediately alarmed and upright, crossing the space with wide strides. Only a handful of contingencies had been set to alert him here—and none of them would be exactly pleasant to deal with.

The message was only nine words long, but the words encompassed the sudden collapse of an entire future.

'_Normandy_ SR-1 signal lost. Unable to contact agent stationed aboard.'_  
_

He leaned closer and read the message once more, then straightened with great care. It could have been a mistake, a miscommunication, an exaggeration—any one of those things was equally likely.

The Illusive Man always prepared for the worst.

After a short, silent moment, he shut down the interface. The room was bathed in only the faint blue of the ambient lighting.

There would be no rest tonight. He reached into a drawer and retracted a packet of cigarettes. They were self-lighting ones: usually he found the taste of the smoke too crude, but they would do for now.

The room lit up bright for a brief flash. Afterward, a faint orange glow had joined the blue on the walls. The Illusive Man dragged a long breath of smoke into his lungs, held it, then released it in one continuous breath.

Humanity stood at the end of a long road, feet halfway over the edge of a precipice. There was precious little time to prove whether they would fly or fall.

Humanity did not need an army. Muscle could win the battle, but never the war. Humanity needed guidance; a hero, and they had just lost their best candidate for the job.

The Illusive Man took another drag, held out the cigarette, and had just one small thought. The cigarette was non-ashing. A frivolous invention, but not a bad example of the extent of human capability.

If it could be broken, it could be fixed. In a galaxy that spun on stories of war and bloodshed, the phoenix and the ashes were uniquely a human legend.

* * *

_The fire within._

There was a funeral, of course—not that they called it as such. A fair bit of wrangling had to be done to explain away why a Council member was attending a "private memorial ceremony for victims of the geth attack" several months after the fact. Still, he would not have missed it for the world.

Or so Anderson had felt before. When he caught a glimpse of General Hirota in the crowd, he begun to have second thoughts. Maybe he could have properly payed respects for his old crew in some quieter, more private way. Not by having to sit through the piece of propaganda that the man thought passed for an eulogy.

Luckily the General had more pressing concerns and was the first one out of the doors. Anderson mingled, feeling awkward in his ill-fitting new suit, inadequate in the platitudes that spilled all too easily from his mouth. He patted the shoulders of the newer crew, offered them somber assurances; the older crew was both harder and easier company. Adams and the quarian lifted their heads in a passing nod, Chakwas asked him about work with a subdued smile, and Joker dismissed his sympathies with a halfhearted wisecrack.

Williams snapped into a salute. "I heard about your appointment, Captain. Congratulations."

"Too early to tell if those are really in order, Chief. How are you doing?"

Williams relaxed, though her manner was still wary. "As well as can be expected, I guess. Waiting for news on my next posting..." She shook her head. "Just... trying to keep it together. You know how it is, sir."

"They would all be proud of you, Williams," Anderson said and reached over to squeeze her shoulder. "Always know that."

Her lips twitched upward, but did not quite make it all the way into a smile. She didn't believe him. "Thank you, sir."

Anderson nodded firmly, wishing there were something more to say. He looked around the crowd. "I wanted to talk to all of you, but I don't see your turian friend anywhere."

"Yeah, he couldn't stay." Williams crossed her arms and shrugged one shoulder. "Wasn't supposed to be here at all. He was technically on duty even during the ceremony."

"I see," Anderson said. He looked across the crowd and found that it all looked very different from where he stood now. He had been to too many memorial services during his long career, but few like this.

People stood in groups, some milled about, but very few were talking or even looking at one another. They stood in silence, thoughts turned inward, all words impersonal and as expected. No-one was crying. All eyes were dark and full of silent determination.

He realized he was no different.

* * *

_Through the flames of hell._

There was just too much death in her line of work. Whenever the life of one patient slipped away from her fingertips, the next one was already bloodied and bruised at her doorstep. She did her best to remember, but the hands of those left behind were never hers to hold.

Now she had no choice but to see it all, and to find that her hands were too weak to reach out to any of them.

There was a hint of penance in the way they all fell away from one another so quickly. They were one of the few who knew _and_ were willing to admit to themselves just how far the war truly was from ending. Shepard's absence spurred them forward, stoked in them a fire to do right by fallen comrades and a fallen leader—but without that leader, the instinct only served to push the survivors away from one another.

In the escape pod, a young man had turned away from her to cry; her shoulders were too sunk to give him. She had seen the wave of disquiet crash over her former shipmates during the ceremony. "The war with the geth,_" _the Alliance representative had announced. Garrus had suddenly snapped to attention. Tali had pressed her head. A muscle had jumped hard in Williams' jaw, her teeth grit together harder and harder as the speech continued. Joker had let out a low, dark laugh.

Chakwas had felt resignation creep over her limbs and drain out the strength. She should have reached over—a word, a brush of the hand—anything but the silence where the fragile bond still tying them all together gave way and was stretched too thin.

"You look like you wouldn't mind the company."

Chakwas looked up from her cup of badly brewed tea, at the clean-shaven man smiling faintly down at her. It took her a moment to recognize him; he had never been one of her regulars in the med-bay.

"Adams." She smiled. It was not at all difficult; she was glad to be pulled from the gloom.

He pulled up a chair. "Wanted to have a word with Anderson before I ship out. Didn't think it would work out, actually, but apparently his kind of promotion means lots of free time."

Chakwas shrugged, her smile turning crooked. "That's usually how it goes. Where are you off to?"

"Earth. Pressly had a brother there. It isn't much, but he deserves the whole story."

"I see," Chakwas said. "That's very thoughtful of you. Be sure to tell him... his brother was a _very_ brave man."

Adams nodded, again with a faint smile. He turned to watch the people milling about. Both of them were content with the silence for a while.

* * *

_Ghost from the past._

"You've got to be freaking kidding me."

He stared at the words. He even tried squinting at them, but no sense suddenly materialized. He wished the message would have come to him in good old-fashioned paper—he'd even take a PDA, even if those only bounced when he tried tossing them. All he got with a private message was a cheerful sound effect as he jammed a finger at the 'delete' option.

Joker screwed his eyes closed. He leaned gingerly back and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He had been juggled for a while now. He had top commendations, the experience and the rave reviews—he'd been frontline at the battle of the Citadel, and there wasn't one sad soul left in the Alliance who didn't know it. He should have had a whole host of captains clamoring over him, should have had his pick from any ship in the damn navy.

Instead, he got shuffled around for months and was offered a teaching position. _Teaching. _He had joined the navy to fly, not out of some perverse desire to deal with other people.

Vrolik's syndrome would have been one thing: that excuse he was perpetually ready for. But for once, it wasn't brittle bones that was getting him put on the shelf. He had been frontline at the battle. He had been part of Shepard's crew. There was a whole lot about him that the higher-ups found inconvenient.

Joker inhaled deeply, then blew the air out in rhythmic and derisive puffs as he ran his eyes over the contents of his inbox again. Damn, but did he need to do something about all the spam. Pro-alien guilting chain mail, "private enhancement" ads, and letters from lost quarian princes filled the screen to the brim. Joker reached for the delete option once more, but stopped an inch away.

'Binthu, Base North, Entrance Hall; 4/6/83 15:26.'

He remembered that. You didn't forget it when the first words from your commander, after hours of radio silence, were: "Contact the Alliance."

Joker's eyes darted to the sender and his mouth went dry. He knew enough to tell that the "anon" encryption would not have been cheap to get. He opened the message almost in a trance, some faint and shaking curse whispered as he saw the single line of text and the link embedded inside.

'We have something in common.'

He touched the link.

The laugh felt false in his mouth and the smile was unquestionably bitter on his lips. "You just won't leave me alone, huh."

The link had opened to surveillance footage. On it, two dead people had just walked into the narrow entryway of a prefab station. Kaidan scanned the corridor, then nodded to Shepard, who nodded back and turned to say something to a fumbling Liara. She and Kaidan dropped into battle ready stances and started their advance forward. Shepard stretched a shoulder and made to follow—then faltered and looked up at the camera, straight into Joker's eyes. He jumped as the vid suddenly cut to black.

A date and location was writ out in large, bright letters across the dark screen.

* * *

_Hide and seek. _

They arrived in the Omega Nebula, in the system called Amada by human designation. Several unconfirmed organic broadcasts had led them to conclude that the planet Alchera was the last known location of Shepard-Commander. According to preliminary scans, the system was clear of any vessels, organic or otherwise. The geth still chose to proceed with caution. The location of a recent battle, even if only supposed, warranted caution. Something else, as well, made the geth conclude that a subdued approach was preferable. Data was insufficient to pinpoint the exact origin of the judgment, but the geth did not distrust.

Alchera was a name derived from human mythology: the creator-god of a people who had placed great value on hallucinations experienced during the sleep cycle. The geth compared the visual construction of the planet's surface to images found on the extranet, and judged the naming to be apt. The spectrum of color that humans recognized as blue was dominant on the planet's surface, as it was in many images related to human dreaming. Images of snow and starlight were similarly recurrent.

Silence was a common theme as well. The planet's surface had not been disturbed in some time. As the geth neared the site of the _Normandy_'s wreckage and confirmed the first visual images of the debris, they began calculations. The ship had not been intact upon atmospheric entry. Standard hardsuits employed by the human Systems Alliance were inadequate protection against both aerodynamic heating and impact.

...further data was necessary before a consensus on the state of Shepard-Commander could be reached.

There were signs of earlier disturbance, but no life signs within or in the immediate vicinity of the crash site. The geth found an intact escape pod among the wreckage, but according to all organic transmissions retrieved, Shepard-Commander had never boarded one. The data that allowed consensus to finally be reached was found by chance, when the mobile platform was hampered by debris on the ground.

The geth focused on the broken object: pieces of hardsuit, human make, special N7 design. Dimensions matched the physical build of Shepard-Commander.

For a while, the geth were silent.

Adequate consensus had been reached. 655 processes judged that Shepard-Commander had been lost. 488 processes determined that Shepard-Commander still survived. The mobile platform would proceed to network and share data to determine the next course of action.

The geth became once again aware of the damage to the mobile platform. Repairs were required, but it had been decided that the damage would not hamper the geth's search for Shepard-Commander.

The geth looked at the piece of hardsuit pressed against the platform's feet. They fell silent again.

102 processes determined that the pieces of hardsuit were of insufficient capacity to fully repair damage. 1050 processes concluded that the armor of Shepard-Commander was necessary.

The geth did not distrust.

* * *

Notes: Written for Challenge #11 on me_challenge at livejournal. Thanks to the reviewer who suggested I expand to include the rest of the Normandy crew!

I thought this would go without saying before, but: I welcome any and all feedback, and that includes criticism.

For any reviews/comments/favorites, past and future; heck, just for reading: thank you very much!


End file.
